From St. Tropez to Wales

...Jean-Michel's "mother's" distress ("Where have we failed...

...I have not seen the original play by Jean Poiret that ran for seven years at Paris' Theatre du Palais-Royal-a house famous until then for a light-hearted, very "French" repertory that never failed to include a bed on the set with girls jumping into and out of it Nor did I catch the film version of La Cage On several occasions at the Palace I was reminded of the movie Victor/Victoria The difference is that in the Blake Edwards / Julie Andrews Hollywood offering, the kindly homosexuals are not held up as models at the end The finale of La Cage aux Folles, the musical, offers them a kind of apotheosis...

...The Corn Is Green represents the second production of the "Elizabeth Theater Group" formed by Zev Bufman and Elizabeth Taylor Its first production, Noel Coward's Private Lives, failed because the female lead was miscast This time the failure stems from choosing the wrong play, or at least an inadequate director...

...Meanwhile, a personal difficulty has come up One afternoon Morgan succumbed to the enticements of Bessie Watty (Mia Dillon), daughter of the housekeeper and an aspiring strumpet Just as Morgan prepares to leave for Oxford, Bessie (who now has a rich friend elsewhere) enters the living room An imposing Theom V Aldredge dress emphasizes her pregnancy The father, she says, is the college-bound poet He quickly agrees to do his "duty," to give up his opportunity and marry Bessie...

...In the second of three acts, Miss Moffat discovers that one of the young men, Morgan Evans (Peter Gallagher is excellent), happens to be a poet with the stuff of genius From that point on, her overwhelming purpose, her idee fixe, is for him to attend Oxford Thanks to her maneuvering as well as her instruction, he is admitted...

...Following the example of Ethel Barrymore, Eva La Gallienne and several other great ladies of the stage, Cicely Tyson has for a limited time become Miss Moffat in a revival of Emlyn Williams' The Com Is Green at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater The role of the indomitable, domineering schoolteacher was apparently one of the peaks of Barrymore's long career when she performed it in 1940 at the age of 60 The same cannot be said for Tyson Not that the part has much to offer-despite some Shavian echoes, the Williams play does not live up to its reputation as a powerful drama...

...A series of tasteless and untunny low -farce scenes is supposed to make us believe and enjoy the cabaret star's hoodwinking of the ludicrous straight arrows Eventually the truth comes out, though exactly when, why or where was less than clear to me Also beyond my capacity is a coherent description of Fierstein and Laurents' chaotic efforts to bring off an ending (it can hardly be called a denouement) A little blackmail, evidently, liberates our heros from the ugly parents of the bride, while the girl herself is completely won over By the evening's close, she is following Jean-Michel's lead in calling Al-bin "mother ". Even taken on its own terms, Fierstein's book belongs in the waste-basket The plea for liberal sexual attitudes, sincere as it may be, is undermined by some very cheap jokes Several of these are rendered still cheaper by Laurents' use of some probably expensive phallic gadgets Luckily for the show's backers, its capacity to please theatergoers does not depend on its verbal excellence Rather, La Cage aux Folles is a sure-fire hit thanks to the titillating effect of taking a full-blown drag musical out of the remote, joyless sort of hangout where it would ordinarily be staged and giving it a glossy production on Broadway For all that it is snappy, well-rehearsed and otherwise technically proficient, though, its theatrical qualities remain limited...

...Harvey Fierstein, who has followed up his success as author and star of Torch Song Trilogy with the American book for this formerly French comedy/ farce, clearly intended La Cage to be an ideological statement glorifying homosexuality Ideology alone, however, could not have raised $5 million from profit-minded theatrical investors To describe the show that Fierstein, composer/lyricist Jerry Herman and director Arthur Laurents have put together as cagey is not merely to play on words For it manages to incorporate its particular message into the well-tested conventions that every experienced Broadway musical maker knows and has exploited in the past And for a touch of what might be celebrated as daring innovation, there is the sensationalistic use of a mostly transvcstite cast...

...brings down the house, but I suspect that is not exactly what Fierstein was hoping for He wanted to show the more conventional parents in the audience who have had problems with independently-minded children that the lives of homosexuals are largely similar to their own Apparently, though, most of the family heads among the public failed to identify with the ones on stage, thus the howls that greeted Albin's lament...

...As for the cast, Werner and Stevens are utterly blank in the roles of the two young lovers, perhaps because the interest taken in them by the writer and the director is negligible As Anne's parents, Jay Garner and Merle Louise are insufferable bores That leaves Barry and Hearn Lacking experience in judging female impersonators, I don't feel fully qualified to critique the latter Barry is easier to watch and appreciate Indeed, despite the fact that Fierstein has fed what are meant to be the most touching lines to Albin/Zaza, Georges is so well played that he introduces the only real human touch in La Cage aux Folles...

...On Stage FROM ST TROPEZ TO WALES BY LEO SAUVAGE THREE YEARS ago David Merrick successfully opened the Broadway season before Labor Day with his revival of 42nd Street at the Winter Garden The producers of La Cage aux Folles at the Palace Theater followed his example by launching the 1983-84 season 10 days before the close of August There any similarity between the two musicals ends...

...The combination seems to have had the desired effect La Cage has quickly become a hot news item, spawning columns of richly illustrated free publicity in major magazines and newspapers a long run appears to be in store...

...The best contributions by far to the show as a show are David Mitchell's elegant sliding sets and Jules Fisher's often poetic lighting Sorry to say, Theoni V Aldredge's picturesque costumes need genuine females to display them to full advantage The all-male chorus line does them no justice And I found the studied sexual ambiguity of the dancing, choreographed by Scott Salmon, inescapably obnoxious A French can-can, for instance, performed by high-kicking men, is decidedly un-French It's not much of a number, even if a house full of people willing to pay $45 to see it seems to make it a winner...

...Miss Moffat is a spinster with an iron devotion to the education of the poor She arrives in a small Welsh coal-min-mg village without a school There is, however, a large comfortable house with an unexpectedly spacious living room and, even more startling, a rich library After some complex tangling with the Squire who owns everything and everybody around (Gil Rogers is quite good), Miss Moffat starts teaching English in the living room with the help of a Miss Ronberry (I liked Elizabeth Seal) and a Mr John Goronwy Jones (I liked Frank Hamilton, too) Her students are a few implausibly unwashed coalminers (I grew up in a mining town and I have never seen a coalminer leave work without scrubbing down first...

...Then there is Jean-Michel (John Werner), the son Georges begot with a showgirl one night when, we are told, he was curious to know what everyone was talking about So far so good, as oneliners go The young man never knew his mother, having been lovingly raised by Georges and his "wife" Albin He returns the pair's affection and regards them as his parents, yet to their astonishment he does not share their proclivities Hence the first complication Georges'and Albin's boy is in love with and wants to marry a girl...

...Tyson is as ill at ease in the part as Barrymore is reputed to have been marvelously fit Nor does Vivian Matalon's direction help her reconcile the two aspects of the character-the obsessed pedagogue and the lonely woman Tyson lacks conviction as a maniacally possessed missionary, and she hardly seems a hopeless spinster, either The playwright's words notwithstanding, we cannot help believing that the adoption of Bessie's child is a prelude to getting Morgan for herself Furthermore, through Mia Dillon's almost intolerable hamming as Bessie, the director makes Morgan seem a bund nincompoop...

...Now comes the second twist Jean-Michel's beloved, Anne (Leslie Stevens), turns out to be the daughter of a grotesquely reactionary guardian of morality and his absurdly submissive, or perhaps stupid, wife They wish to make the acquaintance of their future in-laws, and Jean-Michel, whose strength of character is dubious, decides to accommodate them Georges is persuaded to act like a more run-of-the-mill father easily enough, but Albin presents an obstacle At the last minute, the great chanteuse rejects the idea of posing as Jean-Michel's uncle, and insists on presenting himself sincerely Anne's dour mom and dad are met by Georges and his wile Zaza...

...Miss Moffat finally solves the problem by announcing that she will adopt Bessie's child She tells Morgan that his real duty is to forget about the baby and "go over the hill" to become a literary success...

...Herman's music is pleasant, and his words in "I Am What I Am" may turn that tune into a hymn of homosexual pride The lyrics for other songs, like "Masculinity" and "A Little More Mascara" are more forgettable and less tasteful Laurents' direction generally surprises by its conformity with long-established standards, alternating schmaltz and flashy display...

...Georges (Gene Barry) and Albin (George Hearn) are a middle-aged homosexual couple faithfully united for some 20 years Georges manages a nightclub in St Tropez where performers and clientele alike are his kind of men, and Albin, under the professional name of Zaza, is the queen of his stage The show \ title comes from the establishment's name, which means something like "The Fairy Box"-the feminine plural noun folles being one of many French slang terms for drag addicts...